


Don't Worry, I Got You

by poselikeateam



Series: Vampire Bards (and the Witchers Who Love Them) [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Eskel Has Self-Esteem Issues (The Witcher), F/M, Feelings Realization, Feral Behavior, Feral Priscilla, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Fluff, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Higher Vampire Jaskier | Dandelion, Higher Vampire Priscilla, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury Recovery, Love Confessions, Love at First Sight, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Eskel (The Witcher), POV Priscilla (The Witcher), Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Priscilla helps, Protective Priscilla, Protectiveness, Soft Eskel (The Witcher), Trans Eskel (The Witcher), Trial Of The Grasses (The Witcher), Vampire Family, she defends her man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27013861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poselikeateam/pseuds/poselikeateam
Summary: [Sequel to "Love's Many Faces"]After everything that happened in Novigrad, Priscilla needs a change of... everything. Scenery, company, plans. For the first time in a long time, she goes off, completely on her own. To find herself? Something like that, maybe.She finds a witcher instead.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Priscilla/Eskel
Series: Vampire Bards (and the Witchers Who Love Them) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892647
Comments: 89
Kudos: 194





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'M BACK. Sort of. 
> 
> Took exactly a month away from uploading anything, and I've got a number of fics nearly finished/planned/already written, including the next installment of this series. For now, at least until this fic is over, I'm back to my daily upload schedule (between 2:30 and 5:30 PM EST). I missed you guys.
> 
> Also the title for this is from "the truth" by The Front Bottoms, which I am also almost finished with the fic for.

Priscilla likes when things go according to plan. Her plan, specifically. She doesn't tend to be as spontaneous as her brother; she likes routine, knowing that things will be going well. It's just that... well, everything that had happened in Novigrad had got her thinking. She's been doing the same thing, with the same people, for a while now. Madame Irina's mummers have set up shop in Novigrad and are pretty much planting their roots, and she wants to keep moving. She likes them, really, but she doesn't want to be with them forever.

And maybe hearing about her brother's adventures has sparked a bit of wanderlust in her. Maybe she wakes up suddenly, in the middle of the night, breathing heavily and clutching her throat, and getting out of the place she'd been attacked will do her some good. Maybe the audiences here are getting too used to having her around, and aren't quite as generous as they had been when she'd first arrived. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

There doesn't need to be one singular reason. There needn't be any, though there are multitudes, and that's okay too. Whatever the reason or reasons or lack thereof, she has decided to leave Novigrad behind, for the time being. 

It's not as though she's fragile. People look at Priscilla and see a dainty, feminine thing, a pretty face and a nice figure and nimble fingers that were made to coax pretty sounds from strings. They don't know the strength those fingers have built, the power hidden in that petite frame. She may look delicate, but like all her kind, like her whole _family_ , she is sturdy, resilient. 

Sleeping on the forest floor with nothing but a bedroll isn't the most comfortable thing in the world. Building a fire isn't always easy. Walking can be tiring. None of it bothers her, though. 

No, what bothers her is doing it all alone.

Priscilla is a social creature by nature. It's why she'd become a trobairitz. Julian claims that she copied him, but it's really not like that. She'd seen his lute and heard him play and fallen in love with the sound. She'd realised the adventures she could have, the places she could see, the people she could meet, and couldn't quite ignore the thought. Most of all, she'd known that her brother would leave her alone, with Essi and Mother, and she... didn't want to be left behind. 

She loves her family. She loves seeing them, and being with them, and talking to them. She loves their Mother for giving them this life and caring for them, and she loves her sister's intelligence, and she loves their home. She doesn't need to be with Julian all the time; they could travel to other sides of the Continent, and it would be fine.

It's just that, well, she remembers.

There are fragments, just bits and pieces of memories that come back to her as if she's remembering a dream that she'd long forgotten. Faces that are familiar in an alien sort of way, that she recognises but could never say why; a smack across the face, brutal, the taste of blood in her mouth not yet welcomed, not in this life. She remembers something hurting, remembers the cold ball of fear clenching around her heart like a fist, like a void in her chest ready to swallow her whole. 

She remembers being alone.

Left alone, weak, hurting, alone, alone, _alone_. Hot tears on cold cheeks, each breath ragged and painful, _come back_. She remembers Julian, sort of, but not as he is now, not yet _Jaskier_ , not yet her _brother_ , but him all the same. And then, she was no longer alone. 

Bits and pieces. A handful of puzzle pieces, not all from the same set. She doesn't remember much before, or after, and she knows she's missing some bits in between. At some point their Mother had found them, turned them. She can't remember, but she knows. When her brother asks what she remembers, she shrugs and says _not much_ , and he doesn't pry. 

Priscilla knows it's not the same, but she still feels that sharp pain reopening an old wound, the stab of panic in her chest, when she thinks of being left behind. So when her brother was getting ready to go off on his own for the very first time, she realised that it was best if she did the same. They could go to school together, or he could go first; she didn't care. They played their lutes together into the wee hours of the morning, and at some point Essi joined their little sessions, and Mother paid for lessons until they drove several prospective tutors away, and Mother only sighed and shook her head because she _knows_ what her children are like, and yet she loves them just as they are.

Being a musician was the best way for her to be able to travel and make money, once she left Lettenhove. She hadn't been copying her brother, but she can see why he feels that way. Jaskier (as he had first styled himself back then, the name that’s made him famous) had set off on his own, wanting to experience things by himself, not resting in anyone’s shadow; ironically, right after he left the Academy, he’d met a witcher, and traveled by his side from then on. Priscilla’s journey has been the opposite; she’d immediately searched out a group of people to travel with, not wanting to be alone, and is now traveling the very way she’d feared to back then. 

It hadn't taken long for that sense of loneliness to start to suffocate her, that first time. She found a troupe, fell in with them, charmed her way in with her smile and her voice and her quick fingers. Priscilla has always been able to read people very well, tell what kind of person they are. She can press in, see fragments of events, of what has made a person who they are. Not quite memories, not quite mind reading, but an echo, much like her own memories of _before_. She experiences, vividly, the most formative things that have shaped someone. It's a sort of intuition, and a sort of experience. If Jaskier is the heart, then she is the spirit, and Essi the mind. She's always been able to get to the core of a person, to know what they value, who they _are_ , like diving into the ocean and always knowing just which oyster holds the biggest pearl. Before she could get by on her own merit, she’d used that ability shamelessly to charm her way from troupe to troupe, never truly being alone. 

Now, she is alone again. 

It's not as though she can't handle it. At this point, the memories have faded to almost nothingness. She can use the quiet to compose, to practise her scales, to clear her head. There's a certain sense of liberation that comes with traveling alone, not having to make sure no one is peeping when she bathes and dresses, not having to be as careful with hiding what she is, not having to make conversation when she just wants to be alone. Sometimes, she wants to be alone. It's just... she doesn't enjoy it when it's this much.

Priscilla travels from town to town, on her own, as Jaskier used to. When she is in town, she is around people, and she thrives, but not as much as she knows she could. She feels like a plant, getting enough sunlight to survive but not enough to bloom. 

Each interaction is just another performance. It's all impersonal. There are people around her, but none of them _know_ her. Men buy her drinks, and women glare at her when she smiles and accepts them, and in a day or two she leaves, knowing she'll never see any of them again. 

That is the kind of loneliness she cannot stand. 

Still, she travels, and she enjoys it in a way, and she curses it in another. She sleeps on the ground, and picks berries, and occasionally feeds on a farmhand or a stable boy or a curious, adventurous milkmaid. She plays her lute and sings her songs and writes and tells her stories and it is enough, if only just barely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention it before, but for those who asked (if you're reading this) my surgery did go very well. I appreciate all the well-wishes <3

It all changes, one day. Nothing is permanent, and she'd be a fool to think otherwise at her age. At first, it seems like a day like any other. She’s wandering through the wilderness, mostly staying on the dirt road, humming to herself when the sounds of nature aren’t enough. 

Then, in one of her quiet moments, she hears someone else singing. Priscilla stops, just for a moment, as though she’d run into a wall very suddenly. The voice is deep and smooth and rich, like velvet, like chocolates from Beauclair. She strains her ears to listen, keeping her footsteps as silent as she can as she walks toward its source. The closer she gets, the more she can hear, the more she can make out. It sounds like some kind of folk song, though it’s not one she’s ever heard before.

Priscilla closes her eyes, lets herself get lost in the sound, trying desperately to commit it to memory. It’s another one of those dreamlike nearly-memory sensations, a strange déjà vu, like coming back to a home you didn’t know you had. Perhaps, in her human life, she had known this song. Perhaps she had known a voice like this one. Whatever it is, she can’t quite pin it down, but it doesn’t really _matter_. What matters is _how_ it makes her feel, not _why_.

Lost in thought, she isn’t paying attention to her surroundings. She is barely aware that there _are_ surroundings. So, it’s no surprise when she trips over a particularly large root jutting out of the ground, just on the side of the dirt road. 

What _is_ a surprise is the fact that she never quite hits the ground. It takes her a moment to come back to the present, but when she does she notices three things: she is not on the ground, she can feel someone’s arm around her waist, and the singing has stopped.

“Are you alright?” asks _that_ voice. It’s just as deep and lovely when he’s speaking as it is when he’s singing. She could wrap herself in it like a quilt and never, ever come back out.

“Yes,” she says. She knows that her voice comes out a little weak, and her legs are suddenly unsteady underneath her. By the Gods, she’s _swooning_ , but she can’t help it. Steeling herself, she looks up at the face of the man who’d saved her from embarrassment—

Only to embarrass herself by staring.

He’s _gorgeous_. 

There are several things Priscilla takes note of, one after the other in short order. She sees his handsome half-smile, and then the scars on his face — and, for a moment, hundreds of half-baked stories appear in her mind as to how he got them — and then his eyes, yellow, nearly glowing, with catlike pupils. 

It’s pure, morbid curiosity that makes her eyes trail down to his (unfairly broad) chest, to the medallion resting upon it. It’s in the all-too-familiar shape of a wolf. She knows it’s been too long since either of them have said anything, and she hopes her staring hasn’t made him uncomfortable.

“Yes,” she breathes again, captivated by this stranger in a way she can’t ever remember having been, “thank you, Master Witcher.”

He doesn’t look her in the eye, which is a damned shame. A man like him should be oozing confidence. Somehow, the strange shyness only makes him that much more captivating.

“I’m sorry,” she says, extricating herself from his grip. She sees him wince, just a little, and can’t help but wonder if it’s even possible for her to fuck this up worse than she already has. “I’m being terribly rude. I was just… lost in thought, I suppose. I’m not normally this clumsy.”

“It’s okay,” he says. Somehow, it doesn’t seem like he’s referring to her clumsiness, but something else entirely. She wonders if he can hear the way her heart quickens its pace when he speaks. 

“No,” she says, “there’s no excuse for being rude to a man kind enough to save me from my own two feet. I’m Priscilla, Callonetta, whichever you prefer. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sir…?”

“Eskel,” he says with a hint of a smile, even as his brow furrows just slightly in what might be confusion. “Just Eskel.”

“A pleasure, Just Eskel,” she returns with a wide smile. “If you don’t mind me asking, which way are you headed?”

The smile disappears, and again Priscilla is left wondering just what she’d done wrong. “East,” he mumbles. He still won’t look her in the eye. It’s almost like he’s trying to hide his face. Gods, she wants to get a good read on him, but she’s afraid to try. She doesn’t want him to notice, doesn’t even know if he _can_. 

“May I accompany you?” she asks. Yes, it’s forward, but even without her powers she can tell that she’s better off trying a direct approach. She wants, _needs_ to know more about him. Does he know her brother’s boyfriend? Where did he learn that song? How did he become a witcher? What’s the most terrifying creature he’s ever fought? 

“Better not,” he answers, too quietly. “Traveling with a witcher, it’s not the safest.”

Ah. Another person who thinks she’s some dainty, fragile slip of a girl who can’t hold her own. 

His brow furrows as she feels the tinge of annoyance start to cloud her mind. “It’s not safe for anyone,” he adds, as though he can hear her thoughts. Melitele’s tits, can he hear her thoughts?

No, she needs to calm down and think. Her brother never shuts the fuck up about witchers (well, about one witcher in particular), so she should be able to remember a thing or two. They can smell emotions, or at least the chemicals released by the brain when an emotion is felt. He probably just scented her irritation, and guessed the reason. 

She also remembers the endless rants and letters complaining about a witcher’s lot in life. They’re treated so horribly, even — or perhaps especially — by the people who demand their services. They risk their lives day in and day out and get barely a scrap of kindness in return.

Geralt has had her brother for decades and he _still_ has this look about him when people are nice to him, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is it the same for Eskel? Does he not believe that she can be genuinely interested in him?

“I’m sorry to take up your time, then,” she says. “It really was a pleasure meeting you. Perhaps we’ll see one another again.”

There’s not much she can do but hope for that. For one reason or another he doesn’t want her company, and she isn’t desperate enough for companionship to force it on someone. So with no small amount of regret, and hoping he can’t smell her sadness, she makes her way down the road again.

Later that night, she sets up camp. It isn’t much — a bedroll, a fire, a little tent. Priscilla is halfway through putting her tent up when she hears something behind her, a chittering, rustling, scuttling sort of sound, and feels the ground shake. 

The shaking gets closer and she jumps back just in time to avoid being directly on top of a giant centipede as it bursts through the ground. They can’t kill her, but they are horrifying creatures. She’s afraid, perhaps due to residual instincts from her human life, or perhaps just because of how many _legs_ there are. Its mandibles spread wide and she screams, clenching her eyes shut and trying to back away. Once again, she trips on an exposed root, and goes flying — though this time, it is backwards, and there is no one to catch her when she falls.

Suddenly, another sound pierces the night, metal on chitin, and the centipede makes a sound that’s almost like a roar. Now there is the sound of flesh tearing, the smell of blood, but it’s not human, not even remotely appetising — and then there is silence. 

She opens her eyes.

“Eskel?” she breathes. He’s standing in front of her, wiping his blade. The light of her fire glints off of it and she thinks she’s never seen a more heroic figure in her life. 

“Priscilla,” he says, and dear Gods, her name has never sounded sweeter, “are you alright?” He offers her a hand, and she takes it, standing on wobbly legs yet again. 

“I am,” she answers, “though if I’m being honest, this hasn’t really convinced me that _not_ traveling with a witcher is safer than being with one.”

He laughs, and she loves the sound. “Maybe not in these parts,” he concedes. 

“In that case… may I accompany you to the next town?” she asks. This time, he agrees.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Priscilla opens up a little bit about her family and herself, and is deeply offended by Eskel's lack of self-esteem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for references to bodily injury/torture. Priscilla mentions the attack from her W3 quest/the last fic.

The thing is, they don’t part ways after that. 

When the town isn’t welcoming to Eskel, Priscilla decides that they don’t deserve her entertainment. “If they can’t appreciate my hero,” she tells him somewhat petulantly, “how could I possibly hope they’d know how to appreciate a simple trobairitz?”

He shakes his head like he thinks she’s joking, but she’s not. She’s dead fucking serious, even if she does try to inject some humour into the situation. “These backwards fools wouldn’t know _good_ if it crawled up their arses and died… though, they certainly _smell_ like _something_ did.” 

She says it loudly enough that the people who’d been hurling abuses at Eskel hear, and they are not too happy. Priscilla is not welcome in this village anymore, and she gets the impression that Eskel feels responsible, even though it’s absurd. Still, he lets her continue travelling with him, so perhaps it’s not all bad.

They talk as they travel. Eskel lets her ride on his horse, Scorpion, in his stead. She tries to insist that they can both ride, and if not he should because it’s _his_ horse, but he isn’t having it. There are points in time where she insists that she could not _possibly_ ride, because how would she play her lute _and_ hold on? Then, he trades places with her until they make camp, but by time they leave again she’s back in the saddle and his boots are on the road. 

Still, the longer they travel together, the more they talk. Eskel is a fantastic conversationalist. He has a wide range of knowledge, especially when it comes to poetry, and she is _thrilled_.

“If I’m being honest,” she says one night, “I didn’t think witchers had much interest in the arts.”

Something in his expression darkens, a hint of a grimace overtaking his features. “We’re not _uneducated_ ,” he starts, and it sounds like he’s preparing to give a speech that he’s had to give far too many times, so she shakes her head to stop him.

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that at all!” she insists. “It’s just, well, you aren’t the first witcher I’ve met, and the other… well, he’s very different, I suppose.”

If anything, his grimace only deepens. For a brief fraction of a moment, Priscilla thinks she must have said something terribly wrong, only to be incredibly relieved when he says, “Please, tell me you didn’t meet _Lambert_.”

She laughs, if only because she needs to let out the nervousness she had felt. “No, why? What is Lambert like?”

“Lambert is… an asshole,” he answers, after a brief pause in which he seems to be collecting his thoughts. “Chip on his shoulder the size of a castle, no patience, loves to start shit. Don’t get me wrong, he’s my brother and I love him. He’s just… a lot to deal with, at first. Takes some time to get used to him. I’d rather he not be the one to give you your first impression of witchers.”

“Ah,” she answers, “sounds a bit like a cousin of mine.”

“Oh?”

She sighs, stretching her legs out in front of her and crossing one ankle over the other. “He’s not quite the same, but just as difficult to deal with. A troubadour who thinks he’s better than everyone else. He can’t talk to you without insulting you. He’s a haughty prick, and my brother can’t stand him. Acts like, because he plays for a court and we travel and entertain at inns and brothels, he can look down his nose at us… meanwhile, my brother is more famous than him _by far_. He actually stole some of Julian’s music, years ago, and that’s one thing my brother’s never been able to forgive. He’s family, though, and he isn’t _that_ bad when you get past the attitude. I’m pretty sure it’s just a cover for something, anyway. He fights tooth and nail to be seen as the best, because… well, maybe he just needs to know what it feels like. Adoration, without letting anyone get too close.” 

“Sounds familiar, yeah, except...” Eskel says, trailing off.

“Except?”

He shrugs. “Lambert’s a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘pretentious’ is one of them. And I don’t think adoration is something he’d be comfortable with, even from a distance.”

Priscilla sighs again. “Valdo absolutely is — pretentious, I mean — but I know there’s good in him. He’s just too stubborn and scared to let anyone see it.”

“Ah,” answers the witcher, “now _that_ sounds like Lambert.”

They both share a laugh at the expense of their family members. Priscilla can’t help but feel warm, and she knows it’s not because of the fire. 

“So, your family are all bards?” Eskel asks. 

She huffs, just a little. “Well, our generation,” she answers. “Julian thinks we all copied him. He can think what he likes.”

“Julian’s your brother?” He sounds like he’s trying to keep everything straight in his head, like her family and her story are _important_ , worth listening to. Honestly, Priscilla isn’t used to people _actually_ giving a damn, rather than just pretending long enough to find out whether they can get into her tights or not.

“Mm, yes, we’re twins,” she says, “though we don’t look it. You might have heard of him, actually. He doesn’t perform as Julian. I think it’s just family — our cousin Valdo excluded — that can get away with calling him by his given name anymore.”

“What’s his stage name, then?” the witcher prods.

“Jaskier.”

Eskel stares at her, eyes wide, just barely reflecting the light of their dying fire. After a moment, he says, “I think I have a pretty good idea which witcher you’ve met.”

She hums. “You know Geralt, then?”

Laughing now, perhaps at the absurdity of it all, Eskel says, “Know him? We went through training together. Known him since we were boys.”

“I almost don’t believe you, you know. You look much younger,” Priscilla says. “And much more handsome.”

Suddenly, like blowing out a candle, Eskel’s face hardens. He stands up and turns away from her. Priscilla silently curses her inability to keep her foot out of her damned mouth. 

“Don’t,” he says tersely. The witcher is radiating tension, and she doesn’t understand _why_.

“I don’t mean that he’s ugly,” she tries. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult your brother.”

This is met with a short, bitter laugh, followed by, “I’m serious. You don’t need to pretend.”

“Eskel, what in the world are you _talking_ about?” She really doesn’t get it. What did she say? What is she pretending? For a moment, she worries that he knows she isn’t human, that she’s pretending to be something she’s not. Does he think she’s lying to him, that she’s just a monster trying to slip past his defenses? 

However, that flies out the window when he answers, “I know what I look like. I’m not blind, and you don’t need to act like you are, either.”

Oh. Oh, Gods. It breaks her heart, just a little. They’ve been travelling together for almost a year, now, obviously excluding the winter months in between, and she thought she’d gotten to know him pretty well. She’d been trying not to flirt with him too much, because she considers the last few decades of her brother’s life something of a cautionary tale. She hadn’t wanted to scare him off, but somehow she hadn’t considered that he wouldn’t _believe_ her. This hurt she feels for him quickly manifests into anger; anger at the world for treating him the way it has, and anger at him for believing it.

“I’m sorry,” she says, standing up now herself, “I was under the impression that you were an intelligent man. Clearly, I’d been mistaken.”

He whips around and glares at her, all hurt and confusion, and she knows he’s going to say something and she just— she can’t, she can’t hear whatever stupid shit he’s going to spit at her.

“No, absolutely not, whatever you’re going to say you can shove it up your unfairly toned arse,” she seethes. “You witchers are all the same! The world is so terrible to you for so long that you just— you give in! It’s as if you can’t fathom a world where someone might genuinely _like_ you! What the fuck! It took an _attempted murder_ for your idiot brother to accept that _my_ idiot brother loves him, and I’m sorry, but I am _not_ going to have _acid_ poured down my ploughing throat again just so you can accept that someone might bloody find you attractive!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We switch to Eskel's POV, for now.

Okay.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

This woman — this gorgeous, talented, witty, intelligent firebrand of a woman — has been travelling with him. With Eskel. _Eskel_. For nearly a year. Well, it’s been more than a year, as well as less — they’d parted for the winter, and met up again in the spring, and it was like no time had passed, except for how much he’d missed her. It had thrown him for a loop, and then for another when he realised she had missed him too. 

She’s always so kind to him, but she can be downright _nasty_ to those who aren’t. When a town won’t take him, she refuses to stay. And at first, if he’d insisted she shouldn’t suffer for him, she would just loudly insult them until there was no choice for her but to leave. 

He’d stopped trying to make her stay without him pretty quickly. 

The more time he’d spent with Priscilla, the more he’d liked her. It’s inevitable, and he’s not going to try to pretend witchers don’t feel like _some_ people do (cough, cough, _Geralt_ , cough), nor is he going to try to keep himself from feeling.

He likes Priscilla. She’s a good person, sharp as a tack, tough as nails, and for some reason, she chooses to spend her time on the Path with Eskel instead of all of the other, better things she _could_ be doing. At first, he hadn’t known what to make of her, and if he’s being honest he still doesn’t, not really. She’d stared at him at first, and he’s used to that, but she didn’t carry the scent of fear or revulsion or any of the things he’s used to, the things that make _sense_. 

Eskel knows what he looks like. His face is all fucked up, and that’s not even counting his mutant eyes. He doesn’t hold it against people when they’re afraid of him or disgusted by him. Priscilla, though? Apparently, she feels pretty damn strongly about it.

It just doesn’t make any _sense_. From the beginning, she’s been nice to him, and sometimes he just doesn’t know what to _do_ with it all. He can’t help but think that this is just more of the same, just a sweet woman trying to be nice to someone she considers a friend. It’s just that, well, he can’t deal with that, really. He knows what he looks like, and even if she thinks it’s kind, flirting with him as a joke isn’t going to make him feel good. He doesn’t want her pity. 

But she’s acting like it’s totally serious, like she really means it. And when she yells at him, he learns a few more things that he hadn’t really been aware of. He learns that Geralt, who hadn’t come to Kaer Morhen over the past winter, has apparently, finally gotten his head out of his arse and gotten together with that bard of his (who also happens to be Priscilla’s _twin brother_. “Small world” doesn’t even _begin_ to cover it). He also learns that Priscilla had almost been _murdered_ , and gruesomely.

“Whoa, wait a second,” he pleads, putting his hands up in the universal gesture for surrender. “You were almost _murdered_?”

She flinches back as if he’d struck her, and he wishes he’d been a little more fucking tactful. Humans generally don’t respond well to murder attempts. Almost dying is a bigger deal for them, because it doesn’t happen every day.

Before he can apologise, she sighs, and he can almost _see_ most of the fight leave her. “In Novigrad. There was a serial killer, a fanatic of the Eternal Fire. He’d… well, he had a thing for ritual murders. I was the only one who made it. Your brother caught him, and my brother made me well again, and I left Novigrad behind. I was alone for the first time in _decades_ , maybe the first time in my _life_.

“And then I heard you sing.” She has a watery smile, and she’s looking at the embers of their dying fire instead of at him. In the fading light of it, he can see the unshed tears shining in her eyes, and he feels entirely out of his depth. “I don’t know what it was, the song or your voice, but it… reminded me of something, made me feel _safe_ , and I followed the sound. And then I met you, and we parted ways, and you saved me from that horrid insectoid. I could hardly write a better hero myself, and I’m not a bad playwright, you know.

“You’re kind, and humble, and intelligent, and personable, and so damn _handsome_ , and the fact that you can’t see it… that you can’t see yourself the way I do… I hate it. Eskel, I’ve travelled with mummers and troubadours and acrobats, sharpshooters and jesters and my own damned _brother_ , and I have _never_ enjoyed my time on the road as much as I have these past months with you. You give a damn — about the people you help, about your horse, about your trade, about _me_. Why wouldn’t I care about you in turn? How could I not?”

“Priscilla,” he says gently, “it’s different. You’re human—”

The trobairitz cuts him off with a sharp, scathing laugh. “No, Eskel, I’m not.”

What?

She looks human, she smells human, she acts human. Is she part elf? 

His silence seems to wind her up more. Priscilla crosses her arms, still staring into the fire. She looks so vulnerable, and he wants to… he doesn’t know how, but he wants to comfort her. He wishes he could.

“Eskel,” she says, though she still won’t look at him, “do you… do you think I’m… abhorrent? Ugly? Should I be spat upon and scorned? Should I be pelted with rocks and denied pay for my services?” 

“Of course not,” he answers.

She looks at him now, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the fire had left the pit to blaze in her eyes. “I’m not human. I’m less human than you. What makes us so different, then? People call you a monster because they’re fools, because you don’t _look_ like them. Why shouldn’t you be treated kindly, but I should, when I… when the real monster is the one with the lute, not the swords?”

Eskel doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t like hearing Priscilla talk about herself that way, doesn’t like the abject misery on her face instead of the playful expressions she normally wears. He doesn’t like the thought of her being treated the way he is, and no matter what she is, he doesn’t think she’s a monster. And it strikes him, then, that for some reason, maybe that’s how she feels about him. 

“If you were a monster, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he says. He sits down, so that she knows that it isn’t a threat, because he knows how it sounds as soon as it comes out of his mouth. “You wouldn’t follow a witcher around, trying to convince him that he deserves kindness. You’d have tried to kill me from the beginning, or avoided me altogether.”

Priscilla deflates again, but she continues standing. Eskel knows that he’s in a physically vulnerable position, and he hopes that she knows that too, because it proves his point. It proves that he believes what he’s saying, that he doesn’t think she’s secretly been some terrible, dangerous monster all along.

“You aren’t going to ask what I am?” Where her words are a challenge, her voice is small, smaller than he’s heard it in all their time together. 

“Does it matter?” he counters.

“It... it could. I haven’t been honest.”

He shrugs. “I never asked, so it’s not like you lied. If you want to tell me, go ahead. If you don’t, that’s okay too. You’re still Priscilla either way.”

“You bastard,” she hisses, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. “How can you be so— so kind, and understanding, and _perfect_ , but still so _stupid_? The only ugly thing about you is your self esteem.”

“The scars don’t help,” he jokes. In response, she kicks him.

It actually hurts.

“Ow,” he says, rubbing at his leg. “Definitely not human, yeah. Was your mother a horse?”

“Oh, piss off,” she grumbles. Now she sits down, and he can’t help but feel a substantial amount of relief. It feels like he’s gotten to the peak of a mountain, and now he only needs to deal with the trip back down.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I nearly forgot to mention, but **CW for mentioned death/violence against a child.** It's a memory, and I don't go into it in too graphic of a way, but I'd rather not blindside anyone with it

Over the next few months, they do this weird thing. It’s a mix of not bringing up what happened, and never letting it go. And when he says ‘they’, he mostly means ‘Priscilla’. 

The trobairitz has gotten into the habit of touching him. Not in any inappropriate ways, of course — just… a hand on his shoulder, a kiss on the cheek, a tight hug. She hooks their arms together at the elbow, or threads their fingers together as she pulls him through a market. She puts her chin on his shoulder and watches him make potions, ruffles his hair and tells him he needs to get it cut soon, sits close enough to him that their knees touch by the fire. Priscilla only ever gets them one room at inns, and when at first he was worried what people would think about her, she’d made it _very_ clear that it doesn’t bother her in the slightest.

She keeps complimenting him, too. She still insists that he’s handsome, but now she points out specific features that she likes. It isn’t all physical, either — she compliments his knowledge, his voice, his attention to detail. It’s maybe the most vexing part of all of this, though he’ll admit that he’s sort of getting used to it. He doesn’t know whether that’s a good thing or not. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t want to get used to it, because when— if— in the event that Priscilla leaves, the things he’d become numb to are going to hurt again, perhaps worse than they had before. He’d made the mistake of expressing that _once_ and Priscilla had given him a scathing lecture that might have cowed old Vesemir.

Honestly, Eskel had never thought that she would get _more_ protective over him. It had been hard enough to wrap his head around her being protective over him _at all_. Even after finding out that she’s not human, and that whatever she is has a _lot_ of strength, the concept of _anyone_ being protective over _him_ had just been difficult to grasp. Now, though, it’s on a whole new level. Rather than general insults or simply walking away, she’s been a lot more personal, somehow cutting to the root of people’s insecurities with a smile that’s equal parts charming and dangerous.

It doesn’t happen often. Usually she will still just walk away, or say something catty. However, there are times when someone crosses a line. They’ll call him ugly, or a monster, or a killer. They’ll say he shouldn’t be allowed around decent folk, that witchers should be hunted down. Priscilla will demand that they apologise, and if they do, that’s the end of it. If they dig their heels in, though? She goes for the throat.

Well, metaphorically speaking. She is not a physically violent woman, not from what he’s observed. She just knows exactly how to really dig into a person’s insecurities, their fears. Most of these times, he doesn’t listen to what she says, whether because he is too far away, or there’s too much background noise, or he simply doesn’t think he should. Sometimes, he hears bits and pieces. It’s not until a few months after the argument they’d had that, one memorable night, he is able to hear the whole thing.

“A room for my companion and I, please,” she says sweetly, paying the innkeeper as she stands in a way that gives him a good view of her breasts. It seems to work as intended, because the innkeeper hands her the key with a greasy sort of smile. When she grabs Eskel by the hand and laces their fingers together, though, the man’s mood sours. 

“Hey, you didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout your friend bein’ a freak,” he calls. Priscilla’s grip on his hand tightens to the point that he can feel his knuckles crack, and her smile turns predatory. It’s all teeth, and they’re _sharper_ than normal. His medallion hums ever-so-slightly against his chest.

“Oh, I didn’t? Perhaps it’s simply because he’s not,” she says, and the faux-sweetness in her voice is almost enough to make Eskel shudder. 

The man falters, before puffing out his chest and doubling down. “This here’s a decent establishment. We have good folk here, and I won’t have the likes of him—”

“That’s unfortunate,” Priscilla cuts in smoothly, “because, as you may recall, I’ve already paid for the room.” She lets go of Eskel’s hand, and he doesn’t know whether that’s a good thing or bad.

“You can take your ploughin’ coin,” the innkeeper insists. “I don’t want that ugly fuck stinkin’ up my inn.” Eskel can smell his unease from here, and it only grows as the trobairitz strides back over to the counter, looking for all the world like a panther about to pounce.

“That’s so kind of you,” she says, a little too loudly, “to offer us a free room.”

The man’s face turns an interesting shade of red. “Now you listen here—”

“No,” she hisses in his face, “ _You_ listen here, you wretch. This man saved your lice-bitten arse from dangerous beasts, and if you can’t afford him the proper respect, I will make _damn_ sure that no bard, circus, acting troupe, or entertainer of any sort _ever_ comes here again. The whole town’s days will be as dull and joyless as you,” and then, her voice dips low, so only the innkeeper (and Eskel, because of his enhanced senses) can hear. 

“Or perhaps I’ll write a new play, write a new ballad, about the young man who’d murdered his own brother because Mummy liked him better? The rage and jealousy building and swelling inside him until he was bloated with it, until all he could think about was getting rid of the competition, would make for such a compelling story. That young man coming home, saying his brother had drowned in the forest, how he couldn’t be saved, but never mentioning that it was _his_ hands that held the boy under. Do you think people would enjoy a story like that?”

What the fuck. What the _fuck_. What the actual fuck is happening right now?

He’d known, theoretically, that she has this way of getting under someone’s skin. He’d theorised that she does so through some kind of magic. By all rights, this shouldn’t be as jarring as it is. She’s just never been this… vicious. It’s unsettling to see Priscilla, usually so cheery and kind and friendly, look like she’s about to rip a man’s balls off and feed them to him. 

He still doesn’t think she’s a monster. At the same time, she’s never seemed more like one than she does in this moment. 

They end up getting the room. Eskel’s thoughts are a whirlwind as he shuts the door behind them. 

“What was that?” he demands. He can’t quite remember a time he’s ever demanded something of her. 

She flits around the room, unable to keep still. By now he knows that it’s a nervous habit, and he waits for an answer as she starts to unpack their things, not looking at him. He knows that she’ll answer more quickly if he lets her distract herself physically, lets her get out her nervous energy.

“It’s… an ability of mine,” she says. “I don’t, I mean, I rarely use it. Not anymore, and I almost never used it like _that_ when I did. It’s just that sometimes, I can’t control it. I start to, I don’t know, take a peek, and I see too far, and I— it’s hard to explain.”

“I’d appreciate it if you tried,” he says. He’s trying to stay calm, but he’s a little shaken by it all. He doesn’t know what just happened, what he just saw, and he doesn’t want to make any sort of judgments until he does, until he _understands_ , but it’s kind of difficult. Priscilla’s never been like that, not around him, and it was… intense, and not in a good way.

She sits on one of the two beds, fiddling with a tuning fork to keep her hands busy, crossing and uncrossing her legs. He’s seen her fidgety before, but he doesn’t know if he’s seen it to quite this extent. It’s like she wants to sit still, but doesn’t quite know how. 

“I think it would be best to tell you what I am, first,” she finally says.


	6. Chapter 6

He can’t say he hasn’t been expecting it, but he can’t say he’d expected her to bring it up now, or quite like this. He imagines that whatever she is, she hasn’t been looking forward to letting him know. And he’s tried to respect her privacy. She’ll tell him when she’s ready, even if it _does_ make him burn with curiosity. Eskel never did like having questions without answers.

“If that’s what you want.” It’s her choice, and he doesn’t want to feel either that she has to, or that she can’t.

Priscilla grimaces and stands up again, making her way back to her pack. Clearly this is only making her more nervous. Eskel tries to decide whether he should say anything when she turns around and walks back to the bed with her lute in hand, talking as she sits back down.

“It’s not so much that I _want_ to as it is that I see no other choice,” she confesses. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, or that I’m worried that you’ll react poorly. You’re a reasonable man, except in regards to yourself, and you wouldn’t be the first witcher to know, exactly. It’s just that, well, we are a very private sort. I’ve never confessed my true nature to anyone, you see, so forgive me for my momentary reticence now that I must.”

Eskel nods, but says nothing. He thinks it’s probably best to let her ramble, to allow her to get her nervousness out, and anything he says now will only prolong her discomfort. She takes a deep breath, and opens her mouth to speak, and then pauses; and again, the same. Finally, his patience is rewarded, and the third time she tries to speak, she manages the words.

“Eskel, have you ever met a higher vampire?”

And really, he doesn’t know if he’s surprised or not. In a sense, he is a little, if only because they’re so rare. At the same time, he suspects that a large part of their perceived rarity is how good they are at hiding amongst mortals. And what better way for an immortal being to live amongst humans than as a wandering entertainer, trading music for coin and never staying in one place long enough for anyone to ask questions? 

“I get the feeling that this is a trick question,” he answers. Even if it wasn’t essentially a thinly-veiled confession, how is he to know if anyone else he’s passed in the streets, or haggled with at a market, had been a higher vampire? 

She smiles thinly. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. We’re not… particularly open about what we are, generally speaking. And I would be disappointed in you if you hadn’t connected the dots.”

He waits. Eskel knows how difficult it is to talk about certain things. He has about a thousand and one questions, but now is not the time to give voice to any of them. If growing up with Geralt taught him anything, it’s that sometimes, the best way to help someone formulate words is to simply wait in silence.

“If we’re even in your bestiary, I suspect it simply states how difficult we are to categorise. Some of us are older, come from our old home during the Conjunction of the Spheres. I’m not one of them. I was human, once, but I remember very little. I don’t have any stories from my first life, I’m afraid. What I do remember, bits and pieces… it wouldn’t make for a very good tale, so I simply shan’t tell it. This life has been much kinder to me.

“I digress. We are all different, not just in regards to our origins, but our abilities. Uncle Regis — he’s friends with your brother, you know — he says that each of us has a unique ability that we hone over the centuries. My little sister, for example, can understand any language with very little effort — she’s not even out of her first century, so I can only imagine how much stronger her ability will be with time. 

“I, on the other hand… I can see into a person’s past, sort of. It’s complicated, difficult to explain. I can see the things that shaped a person into who they are, the most formative events. It’s not mind reading, not quite. It’s more of… I suppose it’s more that I live through them, like an oneiromancer does dreams. I’m barely past my second century, you know, so my control isn’t the best. If it’s too intense, and I’m not careful, I sometimes get lost in it. It’s one of the reasons I try not to use it. But that damned innkeep, the things he said! 

“I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to control it, not as upset as I was. I just thought to myself, if he wants to be hurtful, he can have a taste of what it feels like. I never meant… I never meant for it to go that far. And I’m sorry you had to see it, and I understand if… if you aren’t comfortable traveling with me anymore.”

The room is silent. There’s a lot to unpack, as there often is where Priscilla is involved. He’s glad that she knows when to give him time to think, that more often than not she knows when he needs to be left alone. Only, it makes a sudden sort of discomfort rise in his chest. (It might be something close to fear, but he can’t be sure; it’s been so fucking long since he’s been afraid.) Does she know him well because she’s gotten to know him as a person, or has she used this power of hers to delve into his thoughts? Would he know? Surely he would. 

Still, he can’t stop himself from making sure, asking, “You haven’t used it on _me_ , right?” 

Priscilla actually looks hurt by the suggestion, shakes her head. “No, never. I don’t… I try not to use it on people I care about, or— or want to get to know.” 

She’s not lying. He can tell by her scent, yes, and her heart rate, but it’s… more than that. It’s almost terrifying to think about, but he just _knows_ her, now. He’s gotten used to her, learned her tells, can discern when she’s being earnest or putting on a front — though she’s never tried to fool _him_. She’s never been anything but honest with him, and it’s, it’s more than he can deal with, if he thinks about it too much.

He pauses, jaw working like he’s physically chewing on his thoughts before he spits them out, for just a moment. Then, like ripping off a bandage he says, “You should.”

“What?” She sounds more lost than he feels. He can’t help but think she’d have had the same reaction if he’d told her to bite one of his fingers off.

“You said it yourself,” he reasons. “You can’t control it completely. I know you wouldn’t do it on purpose, but that doesn’t mean it _won’t_ happen. Whatever you’re going to see, I’d rather we both be expecting it. So, I think you should do it now.”


	7. Chapter 7

Of course Priscilla's a little hurt by it, when he asks if she’s used her ability on him before. She's pretty sure it hurts because it's such a valid concern. It's a reasonable question to ask, and she hates that about herself. 

It’s not like she’s just going around, peeking into everyone’s past all willy-nilly like some memory voyeur. Still, it _is_ an invasion of privacy, and she _has_ done it to some people. If he’s just finding out that she can do it, it makes perfect sense that his first thought would be whether he’s ever, unwittingly, been on the receiving end.

She would never betray Eskel’s trust like that. She’s only met two witchers, and perhaps that’s not enough to generalise, but there are so few of them that she’s willing to take the gamble and do it anyway: witchers tend to be _very_ private people, if only out of necessity. And while getting stories from Eskel isn’t quite like pulling teeth, the way getting any sort of information from Geralt is, she understands how utterly invasive it would feel for her to pry into his deepest, most formative memories.

That’s why his suggestion is so fucking jarring.

As much as she doesn't like it, she supposes his logic is sound. After all, he's right — she did say, herself, that she doesn't have the best control over it. And while, yes, she meant that she doesn't have the best control after she _starts_ , she has to admit that there is at least a small possibility that she could use it on him without meaning to. She's never been this interested in a person before, after all — well, besides Yennefer, but she's been upfront about it and she knows the sorceress can just block her from her mind if it comes to that. 

The fact of the matter is, he's right. And, honestly, she can't say she isn't curious. She doesn't want to invade his privacy, yes, but now that he's _offering_ , is it really an invasion? Maybe, she thinks; after all, he's only offering it because he thinks it's inevitable either way.

“Eskel,” she says, looking him dead in the eye (which she rarely does, half because he tends to take her breath away, and half because he always looks away first, and she never wants to make him uncomfortable; still, sometimes needs must), “this isn't... you don't _have to_. It's not something I would ever do to you in the first place, and I can't lose control of an ability I'm not even _using_.”

He pins her with that little frown of his, the one he uses when he's trying to figure out how to convince her of something. It feels like decades stretch out between them as he contemplates his next words in silence, but she sits and waits for him nonetheless. 

Finally, he says, "Be that as it may, I'd rather you know what kind of person you're travelling with."

Gods, not this shit again. “I _do_ ,” she begins, but he isn't having it.

“No,” he insists, quiet but firm, “you _don't_. You have no way of knowing what kind of person I am when we aren't together, or what I don't tell you, or— any of it. You don't _know_. Please, Priscilla. I want you to.”

And, damn it, she _can't_ say no to that. There are perhaps a trillion arguments she could give, but in the end, it's that one little word that gets her. _Please_. 

Priscilla has to admit that some small part of her is a little bit nervous, as much as she doesn't want it to be. He just seems so _sure_ that, whatever she sees, it's going to be terrible. Just what is in his past that could be so awful? 

“Fine,” she sighs. She wants to say, _If nothing else, I can finally prove to you what a good man you are,_ but she knows that he won’t want to hear it, and she just… she really, really does not have it in her to have that fight again, not right now. 

She scoots over to the side, and pats the space on the bed next to her. “If you’d sit, please? It, well, it would make it a lot easier, and I’ve never… tried to do it again so quickly before.” Which is partly true, but also it will make it easier on _him_ , and if she knows anything about Eskel she knows how difficult it is to get him to do things simply for his own comfort. Someone really needs to tell these witchers that just because they _can_ endure something, doesn’t mean they _must_. 

Somewhat belatedly, she realises how much she’s asking of him. A witcher, sitting next to a monster who’s about to invade his mind, and she’s asking him to make the process _easier?_ Before she can say ‘never mind’, though, he’s doing as she asks, like it doesn’t even _matter_. Like he _trusts_ her, even now, even after he’s learned… everything.

Her voice is barely more than a whisper when she says, “I’ll need to look into your eyes, dear. Is that alright?” This, surely, is going to be what crosses the line from _just tolerable_ to _asking far too much_. There must be limits, she thinks, to the amount of trust he’s willing to give her. After all, there is nothing more difficult to gain than a witcher’s trust, right?

Once again, though, he surprises her. This time he hesitates, just barely, before he locks his gaze onto her own.

Holy shit.

She can't help but think that "Wolf School" is more than just a name and a picture on their medallions. That's not to say that Eskel is a dog (though she can confidently say there are a good number of men who are) but he has certain... canine traits. There's the physical, of course — his fangs are absolutely gorgeous, no matter what he thinks. They add something to his smile, which is hardly fair since it's absolutely breathtaking even when he doesn't bare his teeth.

There's also, well, the baring of his teeth, the way he snarls and growls when he's in a fight, or at a very specific level of irritation, or just not paying any attention to his own reactions. Priscilla practically lives for those moments when he doesn't remember that she's there, when he acts the way his instincts tell him to. She's a predator, after all, so seeing that sort of thing from a man she's... attracted to is _very_ appealing.

(She's in love with him. That's not really something she can ignore, or tamp down, and it wouldn't be very healthy of her to try. She just doesn't think that he's ready to hear it. He can barely hear a regular compliment without looking like he's planning a quick escape. So, yes, she will keep that to herself for now, thanks.)

But more than any of that, because it’s _very_ relevant in this moment, is his aversion to eye contact. She isn’t sure if it’s due to his more… wolfy bits, or if it’s simply that so few people will look a witcher in the eye, he’s no longer used to it. Personally, she thinks it’s a bit of both. 

Whatever the reason, Eskel has always shied away from eye contact. If she meets his eyes for a moment, that’s one thing. It’s a very effective way to communicate, honestly. Sometimes, it’s easier to get information for one of his hunts if she’s the one talking to people. As shitty as it is, the common folk tend to trust a pretty, young musician like her far more than they’d trust a massive, scarred, heavily armed witcher like him.

Priscilla has made her thoughts on _that_ kind of stupidity _very_ clear, thank you.

Prolonged eye contact, though? It’s just not his thing. Sometimes, she finds herself getting lost just staring at him. Oh, she knows it’s terribly rude, but they’re well past that, she thinks. And honestly, what kind of world would it be where she can’t ogle a gorgeous man like him every now and again? 

Still, sometimes she can’t help but gaze at him, when the sun has set. She’s written countless (very private, for her eyes only) songs and poems about the way his golden eyes glint in the light of their campfires. Sometimes, though, he’ll catch her staring. 

Priscilla has never been easily cowed or embarrassed. If he catches her staring, she continues to stare, now that they know one another well enough. Occasionally, he asks what she’s looking at — maybe he asks outright, maybe he makes a joke about having something on his face, maybe he jokes that he’s sure she’s seen enough of his grizzled mug by now — but she always makes sure that he knows she’s staring because she likes what she sees. 

Gods know the man doesn’t need help bringing his self esteem any lower.

It’s always the same thing, though. She’ll make her appreciation known, and he’ll sort of duck his head, avoiding eye contact. She can’t tell if he’s embarrassed, or if he just doesn’t want her looking, or if it’s some mix of the two, or even something else. She just knows that he never gazes into her eyes the way she’s sort of secretly hoping he will, one day. 

Until now.

And, okay, maybe it’s not exactly how she imagined it. There’s no field of wildflowers, no beautiful sunset framing him just perfectly, no quiet confessions of adoration. (Yes, it’s terribly unlikely, but a girl can dream, can’t she?) He’s staring into her eyes because she is a monster, because he can’t trust her to control herself.

She tries not to let it sting. 

It doesn’t work.

At the same time, though… the amount of trust it must take, for him to allow her to do this, is immense. Unfathomable, almost. How many _monsters_ can say they’ve had a witcher like this? Unarmed, mostly relaxed (for a witcher), allowing them into his mind, to experience the deepest and most important memories that shaped him into who he is? How many monsters can say that they’ve gotten to know a witcher like this?

She can only think of one, actually, and it had taken him decades to get this far.

“I’m going to start, now, alright?” she whispers, as though her voice could shatter the moment like glass. Perhaps Eskel feels the same, because he only nods. Well, then, no time like the present, is there?

With a deep breath, she begins.


	8. Chapter 8

There is a woman. Her face is hazy — she's barely more than a shape. Looking at her, Eskel— no, Priscilla— no, _Eskel_ feels warm. Safe. Hungry, so hungry, but Ma makes it okay. She sings to him, and she lets him be her son, even when Pa spits that it's not right. Ma tells him to hush, and says something about time and life and hunger, but it's too quiet, and it's so warm here... 

Ma teaches him a song to make trekking through the mountains go by a lot quicker. She may not know it, but her song will keep her alive in his memory, long after she is gone. Even when her face fades, when everything else is too fuzzy to remember, he never forgets his mother's song.

The scene fades away, as all memories do, and is replaced with another. Eskel's taller, and stronger. Another boy stands next to him, with wild red hair and warm brown eyes and a laugh that spells trouble. ( _Geralt_ , his mind supplies for her, and for some reason Priscilla isn't as surprised as she feels she ought to be.) There are dozens of moments, flicking by too quickly to see, of Eskel and Geralt. 

The scene shifts now, and Geralt isn't laughing. He isn't awake, not really. His eyes roll if he opens them, and Eskel can see a hint of gold every time. His hair has turned white, straightened out. He spasms and retches, and Eskel—

Eskel stays.

He's beaten for it, a few times, before even the instructors give up. (He thinks he hears Vesemir coming to their defense. That old bastard is the only one who ever seems to really care about them.) Nothing but death will make him leave his brother's side. Eskel knows that they all must go through this, but Geralt... they'd done _too much_. He had screamed and howled, fought tooth and nail, but he couldn't stop them from... from _experimenting_ on his friend, like some kind of _rodent_. Eskel couldn't stop them, but he can be here now. It's the least he can do. He stays until Geralt wakes, until he's sure that his brother is going to be alright. Witchers may not be meant to get attached, but Eskel couldn't give less of a damn about what witchers are _supposed_ to do beyond killing monsters. He may not have had any choice in the direction of his life, but that doesn't mean he can't still choose who he is. 

He feels the agony for himself, too. Of course he does. After all, they all go through it.

It feels like— like he's being torn apart, flayed alive, like something is cracking open his bones and sucking out the marrow. It feels like he's on fire, like he's freezing to death, like he's drowning, like he's falling. It feels... it feels... 

Once again, the scene changes. Once again, a boy is turned into a witcher. Once again, Eskel cares for him.

Lambert is an angry little thing. He has every right to be, but Eskel wishes he wasn't. It's only going to hurt him more in the end. Still, he understands. Again, he couldn't stop them from hurting his brother. Again, the least he can do is be there for him. And he doesn't know _why_ this kid is so important to him, when there have been so many before and will surely be so many after, but... he is. Lambert is special. In another world, maybe they'd be brothers for real. It's a nice thought. Nice thoughts are all that gets Eskel through these nights. Nice thoughts almost drown out the screaming.

Again, there are dozens of images flickering by of Eskel and Lambert, sometimes with Geralt, but always together and always with that feeling of _family_ and _home_ that he hasn't felt since his Ma was around.

Another shift, and this time there is a young woman, barely more than a girl. Deirdre. His Child Surprise. Eskel cares about her deeply, wants the best for her. He wants her to be safe, he wants her to let him help. He wants to be able to protect her from her family, the way he couldn't protect anyone else he cared about before.

He tries to help, but he's trapped, stuck too close to a fight that isn't his. Careless, Deirdre slashes his face. It hurts. It's deep, he can tell. It feels like his face is in ribbons. 

Eskel doesn't forget the look of horror on Deirdre's face. Is it horror at his appearance, or horror at her own actions? He can't say. He doesn't want to think about it. Even if he wanted to ask, he couldn't; she flees at the first chance she gets. He gets a letter with her royal seal — so she got her kingdom back after all, notes the part of him that still stupidly cares — but he tosses it into the fire. Whatever is inside, he doesn't need to know. 

If it were important, she'd say it to his face.

This scene fizzles out. There's another girl, a bit younger. She's a princess too. This one is Geralt's. _Ciri_. It's hard not to adore her. Everyone at Kaer Morhen does their best to mentor her. Once again, dozens of images flash by of Eskel and Ciri as she grows into a young woman. A small, broken part of him can't help but be a little jealous. He could have had this. But no, no, it's best not to think that way. Everyone is as happy as they can be, and he'd rather focus on that now while it lasts.

Another time, another place. There's a succubus. She doesn't care about his tattered face. Her kind only care about one thing. He's happy to provide it. It's nice to not be feared or reviled. It's nice to just... get to live, for a night. If that means spending the evening with a succubus and some top-quality fisstech, well, there are certainly worse ways to while away the time. 

(Priscilla pushes that memory away. She really doesn't need to see any more than she already has.)

Eskel is in a good mood. The weather is nice, the road is empty, and everything is, for once, perfectly fine. He isn't paying much attention, and old Vesemir would belt him if he were here, but he doesn't really care. Vesemir isn't here, and if anything does attack him, he's sure he can cast Quen before it gets too close. 

Somehow, within moments, there's a woman in his arms. She stares at him, red lips parted in surprise and blue eyes wide, but... she doesn't smell of fear. Her posture is relaxed, like she's simply resting and not being cradled by a witcher who looks like he got on the wrong side of several bears. Her heart rate is elevated, but no more than anyone who's just been caught from what might have been a nasty fall. 

_Priscilla_. Her voice is beautiful. Everything about her is beautiful, and she still— she still isn't _afraid_. She asks to travel with him, and it's— it's too much. He can't. He wants to, oh, he absolutely does, but he can't risk it. Why would a human like her ever want to travel with something like him?

As she walks away, he notices the lute on her back. Maybe bards are all just like that, he thinks. After all, he's heard enough stories from Geralt.

Time passes, and he tries to forget about the strange woman. He can almost convince himself that it's working, until he hears her scream. He dashes in the direction the scream is coming from, and he sees Priscilla on the ground, a giant centipede looming over. Igni gets its attention, and it's a short fight after that. She reeks of fear, of terror, but— somehow, it _lessens_ when she sees _him_. It almost seems like... like she feels _safe_ around him. Like she feels safe _because of_ him. 

They travel together. Again, images flicker by, though this time it's slightly different. This time, a few images linger, stick out more than the others. (Priscilla remembers them all, but oh, how strange it is to see them again through Eskel's eyes.) The first time he saw her skin a rabbit. The first time he woke up and saw her still sleeping. The first time she sang for him. Late night talks by the fire. 

Then, there is that night, the night that she first told him that she isn't human. She says it and he feels... numb, almost. No, more than that; it's like he feels so much that he can't feel it all. He's so overwhelmed, it translates as a numbness. She isn't human. She isn't an elf or a dwarf or a halfling. She is, though only by technical definition, a monster. She's a monster, alone in the woods with a witcher, and she's telling him anyway. 

Even now, she isn't afraid of him. 

The amount of trust that this must take, how comfortable she must be with him to even consider this... it's staggering. He doesn't see her as a monster, of course he doesn't, but she has no way of knowing that. He finds that he desperately wants to prove that her trust isn't misplaced. He wants her to know that he won't hurt her, that he still—

Oh, Gods.

He's in love. 

Eskel is in love with Priscilla.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big ups to the folks in the Witcher Rare Pair server for helping me figure out where I wanted to go with this chapter


	9. Chapter 9

Eskel's not really the biggest fan of prolonged eye contact. It's not so much that he doesn't like looking into others' eyes — sometimes it's the best way to read a person, and some people just have beautiful eyes besides — but that others don't like looking into his. He doesn't blame them, honestly; perhaps they'd look alright if he were cat-shaped, but he is in the shape of a man, and an ugly one at that. 

Priscilla can't stand when he says those kinds of things, even though they're objectively true. People say that _beauty is in the eye of the beholder_ , but so far in his life that's never applied to witchers. Well, he supposes, until now. 

This woman is unlike any he's ever met, and that's leaving out the fact that she also happens to be one of the rarest creatures on the Continent. She is unreservedly kind to him, downright protective over him. She acts like she cares about him — she must, a muted part of him thinks, or why else would she be doing all this?

Life on the Path is never easy, and it's one of the many reasons witchers don't tend to have travelling companions. He honestly never thought it possible, until decades ago when a bard started following Geralt around. Even after that, it was always just one of those things, in Eskel's mind, that could never happen to him. 

Eskel will never be jealous of Geralt, because in his mind, an important part of jealousy is the concept of _it should be me instead._ He would never begrudge Geralt any good fortune, because with all the bullshit life has thrown at him, all he's had to endure, the White Wolf deserves all of the fucking good he can get. Still, there is a part of him that wishes he could have what Geralt has _too_. Even knowing that he can't have it, Eskel can't help but want that kind of love for himself. 

Priscilla is different, though, from anyone he's ever met, and probably anyone he ever will meet. She's _his_ , to a part of him, though he can't be sure if it's the wolf or the man. Maybe a bit of both. Priscilla is unique, and of all the people in the world, _Eskel_ is the one who gets to experience her kindness, her fiery temper, her passion. He gets to watch her slowly wake up in the morning, and hear her grumbling about stingy patrons, and put up with her trying to embroider little flowers on his tunics. He gets to watch her chew on the end of her quill when she composes, and see her without makeup, and watch her pick dirt from under her nails with a knife. He gets to listen to her laugh and hear stories about things that never happened, and...

He's so in love with her, he feels like he might burn alive with it.

That's why he's never said anything. How could he? Her friendship means more to him than anything, out here on the Path. Nothing could make him throw that away. 

Well, apparently not _nothing_. He's allowing her into his mind, his memories. What is it that she's going to see? Will thinking about it affect the experience? He doesn't know anything about this, and he's never been the biggest fan of not knowing what he's up against.

 _What he's up against._ She's not some monster — well, she is by definition, but that same definition means that humans can never be monsters, despite often being the most monstrous of all. So, Eskel's not going to put much stock into it, thanks.

Still, he doesn't like being in the dark. He doesn't like not _knowing_. 

And yet, there's nothing he can do but wait.

The thing is, nobody likes looking Eskel in the eye, so he's not used to it. That said, there was a lot that he wasn't used to before Priscilla came along, and he thinks he's adapted pretty well to all of those. What he hasn't adapted to is eye contact.

Because while he knows that there can't be anything between them, he's learning that apparently, the only thing stronger than his head is his heart. He can't keep himself from wanting, and there's only so much wanting he can endure. 

Gods, he wants. He wants _far too much_. He's afraid that if he starts looking into her eyes, he won't be able to stop; or, worse, he won't be able to keep himself from saying anything stupid. So, he averts his eyes every time they linger too long, and he hopes that she doesn't notice.

Realistically, she has to. After all, he almost always catches her eye because she'd been staring at him already. At first, he didn't know how to feel about it — she made sure from day one that he knew she wasn't staring in the way people normally do, but that's almost worse. He's used to people staring because he's ugly, or a freak, or something that can't be trusted. He's not used to people staring at him like he's _desirable_. 

That's where he exerts all his self-control on his wayward emotions, actually. Priscilla is just flirtatious by nature. He knows she doesn’t mean it, knows she doesn’t see him that way, knows she _couldn’t_. 

Doesn’t he?

Priscilla isn’t like any other human because she isn’t one. Humans think his eyes and fangs are terrifying, because they mark him as not human, as something _other_. Priscilla, though? She isn’t human either. She’s at least as _other_ as he is, where humans are concerned. She’s just better at hiding it. 

He thinks back to the first time he saw her skin a rabbit. She wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, and he had been impressed. Now, he knows that she is no stranger to blood. She’s different from him, but that doesn’t make him trust her any less. It doesn’t make him care for her any less. And, for fuck’s sake, it certainly doesn’t make him love her any less.

Maybe he’s been missing something this whole time. Maybe he’s been doing them both a disservice by viewing her through the same lens with which he’d view a human. All of the things that Eskel _knows_ make him ugly, undesirable, fearsome… that’s really only based on the way humans perceive things. To a witcher, scars are a sign of strength, of resilience, of survival. To humans, they are something to be feared and reviled, because it marks the bearer as dangerous. His signs are a point of pride for him, but a farmer would run screaming if they saw him cast one. 

Maybe Priscilla isn’t just trying to soothe his ego. Maybe she’s not just fucking with him. Maybe she ogles him because she actually _does_ like what she sees. And the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks it’s not that far fetched. After all, the last woman to be interested in him was also in the Bestiary. 

Eskel starts to see a lot of things in a different light, suddenly. It’s like he’d been watching a play out of order, like he’s finally seen the first act and can fully understand the rest. The caring way she stitches his wounds, the way her touch lingers longer than necessary, every time she’s sat so close to him that their knees brushed. The way she trusts him, too — not just with what she is, but _who_ she is under it all, the woman who talks in her sleep and can’t resist the taste of honey and sometimes has to come back to camp dripping wet and fully nude because she forgot to bring soap with her and didn’t check before getting into the water. He sees all of it, the things no one else sees, because she _trusts him_. She trusts him even now, even with this — she sits in front of him, vulnerable, and it’s… the weight of it is immense. 

He starts to understand the little smiles she shoots his way when she thinks he isn’t looking, the snippets of lyrics she sings when she thinks he can’t hear, the way she whispers his name, sometimes, in her sleep. He understands the reason she always smells content around him, the reason she defends him against even the smallest slight, the reason she _stays_. 

Her eyelids flutter, and she sucks in a shuddering breath. Her fingers tremble on her knees and, without letting himself think about it, Eskel takes her hand in his. 

That snaps her back into focus. Her heart is racing, but still she doesn’t smell of fear. She’s still looking into his eyes, but now she _sees_. 

For once, Eskel doesn’t look away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispers, full of emotion. He feels like he’s drowning in it; and yet, still, he doesn’t look away. “That you— that you felt this way about me.”

“I didn’t think,” he answers, voice more gravelly than usual. 

“Didn’t think what?”

Eskel shakes his head. “Anything. I wasn’t thinking — or, I was, but I was thinking all the wrong things.”

Priscilla tilts her head. Eskel can’t be sure, but he thinks they’re slowly inching closer and closer. “Give me an example?”

His own slow heart is beating faster as he says, “I didn’t think you’d feel the same way.”

“And now?” she whispers, and they _have_ been getting closer, because he can feel her breath on his own lips. He’s not imagining the way her gaze flickers down to his mouth, before slowly climbing back up to his eyes again. 

He closes the distance, and lets that be his answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is over, but I have a LOT planned for this series, and for this ship in particular. The next main installment in the series, though, is going to be... 🥁🥁🥁
> 
> _**Lambert/Valdo Marx!** _
> 
> So stay tuned for that mess. In the meantime, I might throw up a Priscilla/Eskel fic or two, or maybe some Ciri/Ves (in a different ‘verse). Actually, I have a lot of WIPs. Whenever I have something finished, it’ll go up, but until then, TTFN, ta-ta for now 💕


End file.
